Europe's second-largest budget carrier said a call by MPs on the environmental audit committee for higher air passenger duty was an example of "lazy thinking" and "just gives the chancellor Gordon Brown more money".

The MPs proposed taxing each flight, rather than the present arrangement of charging for each passenger, in order to encourage airlines to be more efficient in filling their services. The MPs suggested the tax could also be extended to cover air freight.

EasyJet insisted, however, that low-cost airlines were the solution, as they were equipped with the quietest and cleanest aircraft and avoided "inefficient hubbing" by flying directly to their destinations.

"The low-cost model is more efficient than the traditional model," said Toby Nicol, head of corporate communications at easyJet. "It's fine to have higher taxes for dirty cars, but we are one of the world's cleanest airlines. We're the Toyota Prius of our industry."

Mr Nicol said higher air taxes would take air travel back to 10 years ago when only the affluent could afford to travel.

"What government is going to tell people, is: 'Sorry you can't go to Spain, you've got to go to Margate,'" he said.

He also pointed out that easyJet favoured airline participation in the EU's emissions trading scheme, the EU's flagship project for limiting emissions that began last year.

Jeff Gazzard, a spokesman for the Green Skies Alliance spokesman, hit back at easyJet's response.

"It would be fairer if ticket prices reflected the environmental costs of flying - we estimate these at around 3.6p per kilometre," he said.

"What is lunacy is to keep pretending the earth is flat - easyJet'spassengers pay tax on the petrol in their cars as they drive to the airport, they ... pay VAT on their hotel bills booked through easyJet's website. There is therefore no reason why aviation fuel should continue to be untaxed and no VAT levied on air tickets."

With emissions from air traffic doubling since 1990 and projected to quintuple by 2050 as more people take advantage of cheap fares, the committee said it was time for the government to dampen demand by raising air passenger duty.

But public acceptance of higher aviation taxes may be higher than the airlines think. More than 70% of people would back higher aviation taxes if the money raised were spent on improving the environment, according to a Mori poll out today.

The survey found that nearly three quarters of those polled would support an increase of £20 on a flight to Paris and around £200 on a flight to Australia if the extra money went towards the environment.

A total of 68% of people said environmental protection should be given priority even at the risk of slowing down economic growth in the air travel industry. Only 29% opposed a policy of slowing down the growth in air travel.

Tim Johnson, director of the Aviation Environment Federation, which commissioned the survey, said: "The poll shows that politicians need not be afraid of raising taxes on aviation. As for the argument that higher air taxes hurt the poor, all taxation is regressive. But is Tony Blair going to cut taxes on beer and fags. No he's not."

· EasyJet reported a 11.3% rise in July passenger traffic and said its load factor - a measure of how well it is filling seats - for the month was 90.4%.

In its third-quarter trading update, easyJet repeated a forecast made last month for pre-tax profit growth for the full year of 40-50%.

In the quarter, easyJet started flying 19 new routes, adding more destinations outside the EU, including Croatia, Turkey, and Morocco.